Organisation: Alexej Lochmatow, Jerusalem
This panel examines the translation of “Western” scientific knowledge into the social, political, and institutional landscapes of Mandate Palestine and Israel from the interwar period through the early decades of Israeli statehood. It situates these processes within broader dynamics of colonization, the securitization of scientific knowledge, and projects of state- and nation-building. The panel asks how scientists in Mandate Palestine and Israel conceptualized the adoption of “Western” scientific theories and practices, and to what extent the presumed universality of science was affirmed, reworked, or contested. The first speaker opens the discussion with a paper on the production of sociological knowledge regarding the assumed “backwardness” of Palestinian fellahin (peasants), examining the importation and adaptation of sociological theories to the Palestinian context as part of an emerging global capitalist system. Building on this theme, the second speaker demonstrates how poultry farming became a site in which the sharing—or withholding—of knowledge and technology shaped competition between Zionist settlers and the British administration, each pursuing opposing political goals. The third paper turns to psychological discourses in Mandate Palestine, showing how the translation of “Western” theories of intelligence became a field for negotiating questions of civilization, nation-building, and elitist visions of social stratification. The fourth paper also addresses projects aimed at shaping social reality by exploring the adoption of U.S. opinion polling methods in the (post)war context of Palestine/Israel, and thus the securitization of sociological expertise in the newly established state. Taken together, the panel offers a multidimensional perspective on translation and knowledge transfer, presenting them as complex arenas of political negotiation and competition.